(2) Doctrines. The fundamental doctrine of his theological writings is the doctrine of the sec ond coming of the Lord. He teaches that the cnd of God in the creation of the human race is a heaven of angels; and He provides for this by means of the church. It requires three things to constitute a living church: revelation of divine truth adapted to man's reception; understanding on man's part of the truth revealed; and a life in accordance with it. The Lord provides that there shall always be a church with tnan. He institutes the church by revealing such divine truths as men need to know and can obey in life. When in proc ess of time they pervert this truth and lose the understanding of the revelation committed to them, the Lord makes a new revelation and begins a new church. There have been four such gen eral churches, and a fifth is foretold which is to be the crown of all the churches and is to endure forever. The first great church which was be fore the flood is called the most ancient, and in the Scriptures Adam, and its consummation is described by the flood. The second, which is called the ancient, and in the Scriptures Noah, was in Asia and partly in Africa, and was con summated by idolatries. The third was the Is raelitish, which is historical. The fourth is the Christian, which the Lord established by thc Evangelists and Apostles. This church had tv•o epochs; one from the time of the Lord to the Council of Nice, and the other from that council to the year 1757, when the last judgment was ef fected in the spiritual world. by means of the new revelation of the interiors of the Word, by which at the same time the Lord made his second ad vent and institutes a new dispensation or church. which is meant by the New Jerusalem, the glo rious hope of the apostles and the expectation of Christians from the beginning—the "day of the Lord," which shall have no end.
The second coming of the Lord, therefore, is not in person, as at his first advent ; for then he assumed a human nature and glorified it for rea sons of redemption and salvation. that lie might become in His Humanity the visible God, and ac quire to His Humanity "all power in heaven and in earth." What he came to do he perfectlyaccom plished and needed not to do again; but what was needed was such a revelation of the whole mean ing of his Word. as would bring his divine mind spiritually present in power and glory. The Lord. who is the Word. made his second advent by re vealing the spiritual sense and genuine meaning of his written Word, in which the divine truth is in its light, and in which he is continually present. This is his coining "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory ;" for the literal sense of the \Vord is as a cloud, and the spiritual sense as the glory by which the Lord as the Son of Man is revealed in all things of the Word. The Lord has made this revelation by means of a man whom he had prepared for this purpose from his childhood, and whom he filled with his spirit to teach the doctrines of the New Church from the Word. This is Swedenborg's claim, and the
writings which contain the doctrines of the Word revealed for the New Church, he published be tween the years 1749 and 1771. These doctrines may be summarized as follows : (3) Summary. (r) That Jehovah God, the creator and preserver of the universe, is Love it self and Wisdom itself ; that he is one both in essence and in person, in whom nevertheless is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which are the essential divinity, the divine humanity, and the divine proceeding, answering to the soul, the body, and the operative energy in man ; and that the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is that God. The Father is in Him, and the Holy Spirit is from Him.
(2) That the Lord from eternity, who is Jeho vah, came into the world and took our nature upon Him ; He endured temptations, even to the passion of the cross ; He overcame the hells and so delivered man; He glorified His humanity, uniting it with the divinity of which it was begot ten ; so He became the redeemer of the world, without whom no mortal can be saved ; and they are saved who believe in Him and keep the Com mandments of His Word.
(3) That the Sacred Scripture, or Word of the Lord, is divine truth itself ; containing a spiritual sense, hitherto unknown, whence it is divinely inspired, and holy in every syllable; as well as a literal sense which is the basis of the spiritual sense and in which divine truth is in its full ness, holiness and power. The spiritual and nat ural senses of the Word are united by correspond ence like soul and body, every natural expression and image including a spiritual and divine idea ; and thus the Word is the medium of communi cation with heaven, and of conjunction with the Lord.
(4) That the Lord saves man by the operation of His spirit ; but not without man's consent and cooperation. The Lord operates and gives to man to cooperate, that there may be conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord, and thus salvation. There are two means to this conjunction : the good of love which flows in by an internal way, and the truth of faith which is presented outwardly by means of revelation and instruction. So far as man can be led to accept and live according to the truths of faith as from the Lord, He by an inward and unperceived oper ation of His spirit conjoins the good of love with those truths, and thus reforms, regenerates and saves.
(5) That charity, faith and good works are unitedly necessary to man's salvation, since char ity without faith is not spiritual but natural, and faith without charity is not living but dead, and both charity and faith without good works are perishable, because without use or fixedness.
(6) That immediately after death, which is only a putting off of the material body, never to be re sumed, man rises again in a substantial spiritual hody in the spiritual world, in which he continues to live to eternity ; in heaven if his ruling affec tions and thence his life have been good, and in hell if his ruling affections and life have been evil.